Capture blows the fear out of Watertown

2nd bombing suspect taken alive; thanks, exhaustion fill the air

A gathering of people including the media gather around a police officer as he leaves the scene after the arrest of a suspect of the Boston Marathon bombings in Watertown, Mass., Friday Watertown, Mass., Friday. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

WATERTOWN 
The man that police believe is responsible for placing the bombs that struck the Boston Marathon on Monday, killing 3 and injuring more than 170, is in custody after a standoff lasting nearly two hours in Watertown.

Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, was conscious when taken into custody shortly before 8:45 p.m. He was taken to a local hospital.

A neighbors reported seeing the suspect covered in blood.

“They got him. He's in custody,” a state trooper told the media gathered in the neighborhood. A crowd of onlookers broke into applause.

Local runner Curtis G. Bille, 55, of Millbury, who was about 100 yards from where both explosions went off, expressed relief upon hearing Mr. Tsarnaev was in custody.

Like many, he wants to know why this all happened.

“I'm glad it is over,” he said Friday night. “Now it just raises a lot of questions.”

“You want to know the reason why,” he said after tonight's capture. “Thank goodness he didn't get away.”

President Obama echoed many of those questions in a televised speech at 10 p.m. He expressed continuing support for the victims of the bombings and subsequent manhunt. He also noted that Boston and the United States share a strength by welcoming people of all backgrounds.

"As we continue to learn why and how this tragedy happened, let's continue to sustain that spirit," he said.

Tsarnaev had been pinned down in a boat in the backyard of a home in Watertown, just outside the city. He was rushed to a local hospital.

Officers are acting with caution because they remain concerned that the suspect might be wearing a suicide bomb vest, the source said.

The source said police had seen the suspect moving from a State Police helicopter flying over the scene.

A Globe photographer at the scene can hear police saying, “We know you're in there. Come out on your own terms. Come out with your hands up.”

A Globe reporter saw police preparing a robot with a camera. Other Globe reporters at the scene heard numerous small popping sounds.

Neighbors said that police officers had told them the suspect was covered in blood. But as of about 8:30 p.m., about an hour and a half after the standoff had begun, another source said the suspect was still moving.

In yet another twist in a fast-breaking story, New Bedford police said this evening that three people had been taken into custody in their city as part of the bombing investigation.

New Bedford Police Lieutenant Robert Richard said his department assisted federal investigators in executing a search warrant at a home on Carriage Drive in New Bedford, about 10 minutes from the campus of the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, where Tsarnaev was a student.

Richard said the FBI took two men and a woman into custody. “They appeared to be either fellow college students or fellow residents,” he said. Richard said Tsarnaev may have been affiliated with the home on Carriage Drive in some way – possibly having lived or visited the house.

Tsarnaev was located less than an hour after authorities announced that he had eluded a 19-hour search in Watertown by legions of heavily armed police. Tsarnaev had abandoned the car he was in and fled on foot.

Residents in the Franklin Street area described pandemonium outside their doors.

Lisa Bontempi said in a telephone interview, “There's a lot of shooting. ... I'm really scared. I've got to go.”

“We're seeing every officer rushing to the corner. We've heard gunshots. We've got cops in bulletproof vests and an ambulance is there, with someone carrying out a stretcher,'' said Louise Harrison Lepera, another neighborhood resident.

“There's a lot of cops outside,” said another resident, who declined to give her name. “Oh, my God, they're just crouched down by the cars. But I heard a couple of pops, I'm not sure what they were exactly.”

Daniel Cantor, a resident of 84 Franklin Street, said he heard “a number of gunshots” in rapid succession just after 7:10 p.m.

He estimated it to be more than 30 gunshots but less than 50 to the west of his home, which is at 84 Franklin St., toward Washburn Street. “It was the kind that I did not want to be near,” Cantor said.

Cantor said he, his wife, and two kids were hiding under a bed when a reporter called just after 7:15 p.m.

Heavily armed police had been searching a 20-block area of Watertown since about 11 p.m. Thursday night.

Authorities say Tsarnaev is one of two suspects in the terror bombs that exploded near the Boston Marathon finish line Monday afternoon, killing three people and injuring more than 170.

The other suspect, Tsarnaev's brother, was killed early this morning in a gun battle with police. An MIT police officer was also killed Thursday night and an MBTA Transit Police officer was seriously injured in a spasm of violence that shocked a region already reeling from the bomb attacks.